The federation strikes back

Stephen Harper’s preeminence as the distant father, and often the bully-in-chief of Canadian politics, is finally being challenged by a group he ignores at his peril, Canada’s premiers and territorial leaders.

Let it be clear: one premiers’ meeting does not a Canadian Spring make, but the icy grip of the Harper regime is beginning to melt.

After all, it is one thing to intimidate, ignore, disempower or punish civil servants, NGOs, environmentalists, scientists, unfriendly businessmen and pesky journalists, quite another to ignore a level of elected government much closer to the people than any federal administration will ever be.

The setting for this significant event was a meeting of the country’s second tier leadership, the so-called “sub-nationals” who are better known for putting a dent in the local supply of Perrier in the doldrums of summer politicking, than for rocking the national boat or making front-page news.

Maybe it was some of the young faces around the table. Maybe it was the lead weight reality of economic facts of life these days in Canada and abroad. Maybe it was even the karma of the casino down the street. Whatever it was, this time the premiers rolled the dice. This time, the Canadian boat was well and truly rocked during the past two days in Halifax. Premier Robert Ghiz, whose father-premier Joe could burn down barns with a gift for speechifying that was positively Smallwoodian, was in a curious way the man of the hour.

Michael Harris is a writer, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He was awarded a Doctor of Laws for his “unceasing pursuit of justice for the less fortunate among us.” His eight books include Justice Denied, Unholy Orders, Rare ambition, Lament for an Ocean, and Con Game. His work has sparked four commissions of inquiry, and three of his books have been made into movies. He is currently working on a book about the Harper majority government to be published in the autumn of 2014 by Penguin Canada.

Prince Edward Island, the premier said with both dignity and dash, had three main industries, all of them seasonal: agriculture, the fishery, and tourism. To reform EI, without consulting the provinces, and reducing all of the very different places in Canada to the same formula, simply lacked “common sense”. Not everybody could, or should, move to Alberta.

Premier Charest of Quebec, easily the most polished performer on the stage as the premiers brought down the curtain yesterday on the most important premier’s meeting in a long time, made the same point in a different way.

Unilateralism was effectively bringing about the de-confederation of the country. The media had fallen for the seductive spin of Ottawa on a number of foundational issues, none more important than health care. In plain language, Charest said, Ottawa is abandoning medicare in Canada and is trying to cover that fact with “spin”, which the media is falling for like teeny-boppers seeking locks of Justin Bieber’s hair.

Charest’s best point? Ottawa has been involved in a long retreat from Canada’s national health care system for years. Fifty-fifty cost sharing is one thing; what is on the way, 85/15, is quite another. Who on the provincial side ever envisaged those numbers when they signed on to medicare cost-sharing? And most telling of all, why can’t Ottawa answer a simple question: how much it is actually willing to contribute to medicare? Does the PMO even know? Premier Charest thinks not, and believes it is high time the media started asking that question with alacrity.

Quebec’s premier added one more thing. When people make glib mention of that 6-per-cent annual increase in Ottawa’s healthcare contribution, clucking that the country just can’t afford it, and supporting Ottawa’s cutbacks down the road, Charest reminded them that the 6-per-cent increment is only on 20 per cent of the actual health-care costs facing the provinces. Where is Roy Romanow’s benchmark figure of a minimum federal contribution of at least 25 per cent, at a time when provinces like Quebec are spending 40 per cent of their budget on healthcare?

Host premier Darrell Dexter made his own passionate yet reasoned plea for Ottawa to start getting involved with the provinces in solving the problems of the nation together, rather than as adversaries or opponents. In private, Dexter said the same thing that he did in public – that he was worried about the Prime Minister’s studied aloofness from the difficult process of all the country’s politicians getting together, and pulling together, on the profound problems Canadians are facing.

BC premier Christy Clark, the skunk at this particular garden party because she would not sign on to the national energy plan devised by her fellow premiers, expanded forcefully and brilliantly on Darrell Dexter’s point. She was there to defend the interests of her province as she sees them, and that did not include endorsing the current fiscal and environmental regime for the Northern Gateway Pipeline.

Here is the admirable part. Clark reminded everyone in the room, and all of Canada, of a fundamental value that seems to have been utterly lost in most of our public discourse these days. To disagree is not a hanging offense; to talk about things over which parties at the table disagree profoundly is actually what being adults, and good Canadians, is all about. Not to talk about them is a formula for vitriolic grid-lock. It was Clark’s finest moment at the meetings.

Even the impressive premier of Saskatchewan, Brad Wall, the man who may embody the best that conservatism has to offer in Canada today if we do not include Jim Prentice, was not totally uncritical of the government in Ottawa.

Not that he didn’t offer strong support to the PM. Wall was at pains to tell me that Saskatchewan has not been hurt by the paucity of first ministers’ meetings because the province has excellent “bilateral” relations with the Harper government. It was Stephen Harper, Premier Wall said, who blazed new and important trails for Saskatchewan uranium in world markets.

And he made an excellent point on why Brian Mulroney had so many first ministers’ meetings, fourteen, while Stephen Harper has had but one: Mulroney waded into deep constitutional waters with Charlottetown and Meech Lake, both of which made it necessary for Canada’s political leaders to get together with startling regularity. Stephen Harper has studiously avoided opening the Constitution, ergo, there has been much less necessity for bringing together the country’s political leadership for a national confab.

But what of premier Ghiz’s contention that it was poor public policy to unilaterally decide matters in Ottawa that had profound impact in the regions of Canada without consulting the provinces?

“On the big, federal fiscal tools, and the way they have been used, I agree with my good friend Robert,” said Wall. “There hasn’t been the necessary consultation and it is not the case that one size fits all in Canada. In fact, there are 58 distinct regions across the country so the need for consultation is very great.”

So now Stephen Harper faces a dilemma that may well define his majority government, if not his career. It is not about the particulars of policy outlined by the premiers in Halifax on a range of issues including health care, fiscal arrangements, and energy plans. That is merely the statement already made by U2 – with or without you. It is about giving up the whip-hand for the handshake. It is about talking rather than telling. And to make that transition, the PM will have to accept the fact that it can’t always be his way or the highway. That highway is getting to be a pretty crowded place these days.

So will he accept the premiers’ invitation to attend a First Minister’s meeting in Nova Scotia this November? Brad Wall is optimistic.

“I like our chances. After all, it’s his subject, the economy, and I think he would agree that the only time we have met as a group over the recession back in 2009 was quite successful. We shall see.”

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.

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The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.